


I’ll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me

by SirRobin126



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Dangerous Levels of Snark, Discussion of Death, Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, Ghost Harry, Hurt/Comfort, I love Harry Wells with all my heart, I realise this can get pretty heavy but please trust me there are also many jokes, I'm sure someone's already done this idea, M/M, Spoilers, so apologies if I tread on your toes I haven't been keeping up with fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirRobin126/pseuds/SirRobin126
Summary: Post-Crisis, Harry Wells just isn’t sure where he fits into this world anymore. Trapped in Nash’s subconscious he must bear witness to an Earth that has replaced him, friends that are moving on, and the love of his life that Harry is certain is better off thinking that he’s truly gone. To deal with this new reality, Harry has convinced himself that he is no longer a living person, but rather a mere imprint of dimensional memory, and therefore cannot be hurt by a universe that is leaving him behind.But when Harry accidentally takes possession of Nash’s body, he must re-evaluate everything he has told himself. With Harry now in control, will he be able to maintain his cover as the roguish Nash Wells, or will he succumb to the allure of reconnecting with those he’d thought he’d lost?Most importantly, with the time he has left, will Harry once again be able to face the one man he would claw his way out of the afterlife to be with?
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells
Comments: 17
Kudos: 52





	I’ll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me

**Author's Note:**

> In case some aren't familiar, most of the movie references in this fic are to the film Ghost (1990).
> 
> For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FdGaamBXVg

Harry wasn’t exactly sure what he was. He sort of knew where he was, though why he was there was still a mystery. Riding sidealong in Nash Wells’ subconscious had given him plenty of time to mull these questions over. In that time, Harry’s analytical mind, still somewhat dulled from its former brilliance, had been whirring constantly, trying to make sense of his new situation. The last thing Harry remembered was standing on the roof of his Labs, energy rifle in hand, blasting dementors out of the air as the skies reddened around him.

Next thing he knew, Harry was blinking into consciousness on Earth-1, staring at a man with his face. Being confronted by a doppelganger was nothing unusual for Harry, but nevertheless, he’d been struck by his first encounter with Nash. The two Wells’ had held each other’s gaze for a brief moment; just enough time for Harry to recognise the haunted look in Nash’s eyes. Then he was gone again. Harry drifted in and out of awareness after that, or possibly, entirely out of existence.

He didn’t think he was a ghost. Harry had dismissed the notion as ridiculous as soon as it occurred, though that hadn’t stopped him from trying to convince Nash of it. After about a week of being as spooky as possible, Harry realised Nash wasn’t buying his spectral performance. It turned out that Nash was apparently as stubborn as Harry was when it came to requiring evidence to believe the unbelievable. So Harry had given up the ghost, and turned his efforts towards other endeavours.

He’d briefly considered whether or not he might be a figment of Nash’s imagination; he wasn’t corporeal and he couldn’t interact with the outside world, no matter how many bottlecaps he tried flicking across subway station floors. There were also times when he was able to access some of Nash’s thoughts, feelings and memories, which suggested he himself might be a fragment of Nash’s unconscious mind, materialising into the shape of Harry Wells. It was a notion that had given him more than one restless bout of panicked existentialism.

Ultimately, Harry had reasoned that it was unlikely he had been imagined by Nash, given that he’d never met Nash before in his life, nor was Nash likely to know a whole lot about him. The only interaction the two of them had ever had, before this Search For Spock style bullshit, was the rude message Nash had sent to the Council of Wells, refusing their offer of membership. Therefore, given that the former material existence of Harry Wells seemed a pretty agreed upon fact in the outside world, it was improbable that Nash had constructed him wholesale from his imagination. Which was certainly a weight off Harry’s proverbial shoulders.

Harry wasn’t always in Nash’s sidecar though. Sometimes he went long stretches without materialising, though to him it never felt like any time had passed. At the beginning, it seemed to happen most when Nash was conflicted or distressed. Harry would blink into existence, context flooding to him in an instant, ready to tell Nash he was doing something wrong. As time went on, however, Harry began to stay around longer, sometimes without Nash even being aware of his presence. When this happened, it took great concentration on Harry’s part to make Nash see him, but with practice, Harry soon became quite good at it.

So if he wasn’t a ghost, and he wasn’t a figment of Nash’s imagination, what was he? The closest Harry had come to settling on an description, was the idea that he was some sort of energy imprint. He must be a shade - a memory of Harrison Wells given agency and living on in the head of another man - a disgruntled Phantom of the Optic Nerve. It wasn’t a perfect rationalisation, but Harry had his reasons for adhering to it.

Through Nash’s eyes, Harry had pieced together much of what had happened after he’d disappeared - after he’d died, rather. Nash’s mind was an endless system of tunnels Harry could explore; identifying snippets of information and scattered memories of the events between when Harry died and when he woke up. There were also plenty of opportunities for Harry to gather further details by listening in on the conversations Nash had with Harry’s friends. Admittedly, it was difficult to absorb much from these exchanges when Harry was forced to watch from within his glass cage as Nash usurped not only his position, but his relationships too.

It was imperative, to stem the jealousy threatening to carve him out from the inside, that Harry remind himself he was just a memory. Those weren’t his relationships, those were the friends of a dead man. The universe had reformed itself with one Earth at the centre of it and it wasn’t his. That meant that he had to be a phantom and that everyone else on his Earth was gone, including… Harry wouldn’t think about his daughter, he couldn’t. Whenever the thought arose he would block it out, shut it down and freeze himself over to avoid the obvious conclusion his mind was not allowed to reach.

This was the real reason Harry knew he could not be a fabrication of Nash’s imagination. He knew his own agony, and he knew it well. There was no pain so acute that could be conjured up by a memory, no sensation so unthinkable that could be projected onto a simulacrum, that would match Harry’s loss. A loss he refused to even consider. That must be some argument for his agency at least; I repress therefore I am.

Nevertheless, there was little evidence, outside of his own emotions, that gave Harry much hope that he was anything approaching a living being. He was compelled to watch intangibly as Nash hovered on the edge of Team Flash. He was a prisoner of the subconscious while Nash was out there, helping in ways Harry would never again be able to. When he allowed it to, the thought tore him up that a man with his face was out there, becoming a member of the family Harry couldn’t reach, and being allowed, by virtue of his corporeality, to speak with the man that Harry loved, when Harry could not.

Cisco had taken the destruction of the multiverse harder than anyone. Harry couldn’t count the hours Cisco had spent, holed up by himself, making charts and dedicatedly researching the lives that might have been spared. Though Harry was tethered to Nash’s subconscious, he had tested the limits of this connection by seeking Cisco out, again and again, to watch him at his work. Harry would sit beside him as he scribbled out his notes, or perch on the edge of Cisco’s desk to watch him cataloguing the innumerable disparities that marked his new universe. It was an undertaking as much about punishment as it was closure, for the both of them. 

Harry wondered what Cisco hoped to find, in dedicating himself to that cause. He wondered, for example, whether Cisco still held on to any hope that there were certain inhabitants of Earth-2 that might have made it through. Harry wouldn’t blame him for hoping. There was still a part of Harry that had a hope – a hope buried deep within him - that somewhere out there Cisco would find Jesse. Harry wished he could reach out, stroke Cisco’s cheek, take his hand and tell him that it wasn’t his responsibility to absorb the sheer amount of loss in the universe. He could feel the guilt radiating off every action Cisco made, and there was nothing he could do about it.

There had been a time, a while ago, when Harry deliberated whether he ought to pressure Nash into telling Cisco about Harry’s presence. If he really tried he was certain he could either persuade or annoy Nash into complying, but the more he considered the prospect, the more it troubled him. Cisco had lost him once, and Harry knew from experience how painful that kind of loss was. There was no telling how long his new existence inside Nash’s head would last, and surely it was better that Cisco never know, than to have that hope fed and lost again.

And so it was easier (far, far easier) for Harry to think of himself as a phantom, a shadow of a man who had once been alive and was now most useful as a talking encyclopaedia with an attitude problem. After all, if he wasn’t real he didn’t really deserve a life outside of this, did he? If he was just a memory, he wouldn’t need to yearn for anything, not life, or a home, or love. Harry wasn’t a man anymore, he was simply, a guide. That attitude was what let Harry to come to terms with his situation, allowing him to provide colour commentary on Nash’s life without having to grapple with the implications of his own. That was, until today.

It was morning, though you wouldn’t know it from the unchanging light of the fluorescents illuminating the interior of S.T.A.R. Labs. For the rest of the city it was a quiet, peaceful start to the day, but in the Speed Lab - hastily converted to make space to work on the new artificial Speedforce - Harry Wells was irritated. It was in the middle of an impassioned explanation of the Standard Model that Harry spun on his heel to find his present student less than alert. Nash sat casually with his feet kicked up on a tool box and his head resting on the back of his seat, eyes closed.

Harry halted mid-sentence and let out an annoyed sigh. The moment Harry ceased talking, Nash’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked a couple of times, quickly sitting straighter and stretching out his jaw. In less than a second he was peering at the board again, nodding thoughtfully as if he’d never drifted off at all.

It was almost impressive.

“Are you paying attention?” Harry growled. Nash looked almost insulted to be asked.

“Of course.” He replied.

“Uh-huh, what was the last thing I said?”

Nash’s eyes almost imperceptibly flicked sideways as he mentally ran through the lesson, trying to recall. He scratched the light dusting of stubble on his chin before snapping his fingers and pointing at Harry.

“Fundamental particles, you were talking about fermions. All that matter and anti-matter stuff.”

Harry rolled his eyes unhappily but he couldn’t exactly argue with that summation.

Apparently Nash’s sleeping brain had been paying more attention than it seemed. Nevertheless, Nash seemed a little too pleased with himself for simply being able to repeat a few keywords on command.

Harry still wasn’t sure how much real theory was getting through to him. It wasn’t that Nash wasn’t smart. The man was more than capable of understanding, the only problem was that he was an academic hyena. Nash’s entire body of knowledge, though substantial, was piecemeal. His ideas, skills and talents, were stolen here and there, from any source he could get his hands on. They were snatched in the moment they benefitted him and stored away in the teetering pile of facts and abilities that was his brain.

Therefore, when Harry was trying to help solve a problem, such as the artificial Speedforce that he was intent on seeing finished, he had to first fill in the yawning gaps between Nash’s fields of education. Harry didn’t appreciate the time this extra step wasted, and Nash, for his part, did not welcome the lengthy theoretical lectures Harry insisted on burdening him with.

“When are we gonna get our hands on the equipment?” Nash asked, stretching his arms over his head and dropping them again, one of his legs bouncing restlessly as he spoke.

“When I’m satisfied you know what it is you’re messing around with.”

Nash sighed and dragged a hand over his face before crossing his arms and waiting for Harry to continue. Harry did, but definitely not because Nash told him to. He continued to take Nash step by step through The Langrangian, barking out a stern warning whenever he noticed Nash’s eyelids begin to droop.

Nash’s rugged disposition wasn’t suited to this kind of work. Even if Harry wasn’t literally inside his head, it would have been obvious just to look at him; from his purposely devil-may-care grooming, to his ever-present utility satchel that made him look like he was ready to storm King Solomon’s mines at a moment’s notice. He had Harry’s face, but it was coarser, more weather-beaten, with the roguish good-looks of a man who voluntarily chose to spend a majority of his life outdoors. Looking at Nash, Harry was able to see, for the first time in his entire life, what he might have looked like if he’d ever managed to get a tan.

In the midst of Harry’s continuing lecture, Nash stood from his chair and began to walk around the room. He cracked his neck to the side and rolled his shoulders, looking idly over the equipment scattered along the ground. Harry grabbed for the marker sitting on the whiteboard’s metal shelf, but his fingers slid ineffectually through the plastic.

Sighing, he caught Nash’s attention and gestured to the pen.

“Could you?” He asked.

“What do you need?”

“Circle the beginning of the third line.”

Nash did so dutifully, but as he was snapping the marker’s lid back on, he made the mistake of asking, innocently enough, “And why did I do that?”

Harry stared at him, long enough that Nash began to get uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Why? What do you mean why?” Harry asked through gritted teeth. “I just told you why. I just spent the last twenty minutes telling you why.”

Harry’s vehemence may have been enough to intimidate some, but Nash was not about to be cowed; he was a Wells after all. He shrugged his shoulders, shooting Harry an annoyed look.

“Can you blame me? We’ve been here for hours and we’ve done exactly how much to get Barry’s speed back?” Nash looked around himself and nodded, as if he’d just done the calculation in his head. “Oh that’s right, it’s nothing.”

“This is important!” Harry exclaimed, throwing his hand out to the board in a wild motion that might have sent it flying were he corporeal.

“Then how come you don’t just tell me what to do with it? You already know it, just tell me how to put it to use and I will.” Nash seemed half combative, half plaintive.

“I need you to know what you’re doing,” Harry’s jaw tightened, “because I might not always be here.”

“Right now that seems pretty hard to believe.”

Harry huffed impatiently. 

“All the heads in the world, and I have to get stuck in one that belongs to a geologist who thinks he’s Allan Quatermain. I hope your rocks are well-equipped to deal with Barry’s condition when I’m not here to hold your hand through it.”

“You wanna know the nice thing about rocks, Professor Smartass?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Rocks don’t talk back.” Nash smirked.

Harry put his hands on hips, breathing deeply into his imaginary lungs in an effort to remain calm. Nash stepped towards the metallic sphere in the centre of the room. Inspecting it from where he stood, he threw his hands up in a quizzical gesture.

“Why am I down here? I’m no engineer. I should leave this to Cisco and go back out there where I can be some use.”

Harry frowned. “Ramon has his own mission, and he’s off doing it, so the least you can do is suck it up and get to work here.”

“Yeah, that is the least I can do.” Nash agreed. “And the most I can do, is go find a problem that actually needs me to fix it.” He added facetiously.

“Not everything can be solved by rappelling in from the ceiling and dropkicking the problem.”

“You never know until you try.” Nash retorted, calling over his shoulder as he swept past Harry, heading for the door.

With a growl that very much suggested he was at his limit, Harry followed, stalking over to Nash without a thought as to what he was doing. He threw out a hand to clap Nash on the shoulder and bodily turn him around, the futility of his action only dimly registering in the back of his mind. To his immense surprise, and presumably to Nash’s, Harry’s hand made contact. There was no time to consider the implications of this action, because, in a single instant, Harry’s entire world lurched out of place.

When his vision cleared, Harry became aware of a pounding in his head, a buzzing in his fingers and a tightness in his chest. Aches and pains seemed to permeate his entire body. Harry blinked. He had a body.

It wasn’t a body that had seen the best care in the world, but then again, neither had his old one. Harry raised his hands, turning them over in front of his face and taking them in; dirty fingernails, fingerless gloves and all. His mouth was dry, so he swallowed and surprised himself with the novelty of the sensation. Harry dragged an astonished hand through his hair. The action felt different now that the hair was tangible, as was the hand.

“What the hell?”

Harry looked up from his stunned appraisal to see Nash Wells standing in front of him. He looked about as shocked and confused as Harry felt. Opening his mouth to speak, Nash only got as fair as a hurried “wait-!” before promptly disappearing.

The wheels in Harry’s head began to turn rapidly as he deduced that if Nash’s incorporeal experience was anything like Harry’s, it was going to take him awhile to be able to manifest again. That was presuming that the fact the body itself was Nash’s wouldn’t have an effect on the speed with which he was returned to it. Even factoring in that variability, Harry was fairly confident he had some time, and as soon as he reached that conclusion, Harry couldn’t help a grin. He had a body again.

He stood still, marvelling at the sensation of his heart beating, and that he could have forgotten so soon how cool air felt on his skin. What should he do first? He wondered. Should he burst into the S.T.A.R. Labs command centre, announcing his presence with the dramatic gravity he was so practiced at? Or maybe he could pay a long-past-due visit to Big Belly Burger, he could almost taste the incredible sandwich grease now. He could even, and Harry’s heart began to beat faster at the thought, track Cisco down, wherever his journey had taken him, using whatever hours he had left in charge of Nash’s limbs to drive cross-country to see his face again.

No. Harry reprimanded himself as quickly as the thought occurred, schooling his errant giddiness. There was a reason he’d remained un-revealed and that reason hadn't changed just because he’d suddenly gained physical form. This wasn’t really his body, after all; he’d just been temporarily handed the reins. Phantoms didn’t warrant a reunion, and if he, a shade of Harrison Wells, started to meddle in the affairs of the living he may as well count himself a poltergeist.

There was, however, one thing in the land of the living he was both eminently qualified for and perfectly placed to help with. Harry spun around, examining the artificial Speedforce frame like a predator eyeing its prey. Without another thought, Harry ran back to his whiteboard, tearing off those stupid gloves as he went. He snatched the marker up, and this time his fingers immediately made contact with that cylindrical fiend.

Harry flew through his equations. Without needing to explain the fundamentals of quantum physics, he was able to move straight to the next theoretical layer. Soon he was racing back and forth between the board and the frame, feverishly taking notes and making modifications. He rapidly divested himself of Nash’s jacket and utility belt, which were just getting in the way of his agitated progress. Though the bracer on Nash’s left wrist, which Harry had initially tried to remove, quickly proved useful.

Much like the man himself, Nash’s bracer was a combination of disparate fragments of machinery, all designed for different purposes, and hastily assembled into one functioning unit. The more Harry used it, the more he appreciated why Nash never let the thing out of his sight. There were about a hundred settings, the purposes of which Harry could only guess at. He hoped he had a chance to figure them all out.

Time passed swiftly as Harry worked. So absorbed was he in his efforts that he almost didn’t notice a short figure slipping into the room to watch him. When he did, Harry stopped dead, a wrench in his mouth and hair in his eyes, trying not to hope that the person behind him was who he thought it might be. Wiping his forehead, he turned around to reveal not the form of Cisco Ramon, but the nevertheless welcome sight of another old friend.

“You look busy.” Former DA Cecile Horton remarked, taking in the mess Harry had made of the lab.

Harry nodded, it was all he could do to quell his delight at seeing Cecile again. He was going to need to remember to temper himself to ensure that he made as little impression on the world as possible during his time in Nash’s body.

“Just working on the Speedforce for Barry.” Harry replied, keeping his tone neutral, trying not to invite further inquiry.

“Well I’m sure he appreciates it.”

Cecile paused as Harry turned away from her and went back to rewiring the sphere’s base.

“Are you okay, Nash?”

“Yes, what- I’m fine,” Harry stammered, standing quickly, “why- why wouldn’t I be fine?”

Cecile peered at him suspiciously and Harry automatically reached for a pair of glasses he wasn’t wearing. He tried to play it off by running his hand through his hair, then resting it on his hip, before holding it straight down beside him. Harry was having trouble remembering how Nash stood. Actually, right now he wasn’t sure he could recall how any human being had ever stood.

He took a breath and tried again.

“I assure you I’m perfectly fine. I’m just…worried for Barry.”

Cecile nodded in sympathy.

“Me too.” She admitted, emotion springing to her wide, doe-like eyes. Harry made to reach out, and found his resolve to maintain an unobtrusive presence begin to weaken in the face of Cecile’s distress.

“I can barely get through the day without thinking about him a hundred times.” Cecile continued. “And Joe, and I can’t stop wondering how we’re ever going to get through this.”

Cecile took a seat on a bench lining the nearest wall. Harry stayed where he was, but when he saw the tremble in Cecile’s hands he couldn’t help himself. Oh, what the hell, he thought. What was so terrible about being a bit of a poltergeist anyway? Grabbing a cloth to clean the grease off his hands, Harry slid onto the seat next to Cecile.

“Detective West has been through worse than a stint in witness protection.” Harry assured her, hoping the confidence with which he said it was enough to make it true. “And Barry Allen has definitely been through worse than temporarily losing his speed.”

Harry should know, he’d been the one who’d almost stolen it for good.

“They always come out the other side. All we can do is help as much as we can from the side-lines.” He considered for a moment, before continuing, “and make sure to tell them when they’re being complete idiots, of course.”

Cecile laughed and it struck a half-forgotten chord within him. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed talking to her, or rather, how much the real Harry Wells had enjoyed her company when he was alive.

“Don’t let the Captain hear you call him ‘Detective West’ when he gets back, or you’ll never hear the end of it.” Cecile warned him, amused.

Harry closed his eyes, admonishing himself for not remembering Joe’s promotion. He’d have to be more careful in future. When he opened his eyes again, Cecile was gazing at the far wall, but her attention seemed elsewhere.

“Something wrong?” Harry asked, hesitantly.

Cecile shrugged and didn’t answer right away, her brow furrowed in thought.

“I don’t know, it might sound silly.”

“Try me.” Harry declared. “We work on the same team as Ralph Dibny, I have a high tolerance for silly.”

Cecile conceded the point and sighed.

“Everything just seems so out of my control lately that I can’t even make sense of myself. That’s nuts right? I’m supposed to be the empath around here and even I don’t know how to figure out what I’m feeling.”

Harry acknowledged the joke, but he got the sense she wasn’t finished. Cecile shook her head, still lost in thought.

“Then today, it was the weirdest thing. The Citizen’s office is being rewired so I dropped Allegra here to finish her piece, but as soon as we walked through the front door I was hit by a wave of the strangest feeling.”

“What feeling?”

Cecile met his eyes, her cheerful expression undercut by a layer of sadness.

“Joy.” She told him. “There was this overwhelming sense of joy, all over the labs. Isn’t that just absurd? To be so happy, right now, when everything is going so wrong.”

Harry nodded, agreeing that it was indeed absurd. Surely there was no reason for a feeling like that to sweep through such an anxious environment, no matter who may or may not have been returned to a corporeal form from intangible subconscious just that morning.

“When I walked through those doors, I wasn’t just happy, I felt like I had purpose. I know it sounds ridiculous but I really felt like I was doing something useful, something I was meant to do. I marched right down here with the absolute confidence that I was fulfilling some big purpose, but now that I’m here, I don’t what the hell it is I’m supposed to be doing.”

Harry shifted in his seat, embarrassed that his emotions apparently had escaped so far out of himself that they’d found their way to Cecile. He used to be a lot better at masking those, that thinking cap sure had done a number on him.

“Well,” said Harry, after he’d let her words hang in the air a moment, “you could always pass me that spanner.”

He pointed to a spanner on the ground by Cecile’s feet.

“I beg your pardon?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe your purpose coming down here was to help me with the Speedforce. The faster we get Barry faster, the faster Joe can come back.”

Cecile made a thoughtful noise, but quickly made up her mind and stood, passing Harry the spanner that he definitely did not need. He deftly concealed that fact as he led Cecile back to the spherical Speedforce frame, tucking the spanner into a pile of scrap as he sifted through what little jobs he could give her to make her feel useful.

As it turned out, Cecile was more of an asset than Harry had given her credit for. She was a quick learner, and Harry was soon having to give her bigger projects once she’d completed everything else he’d thrown her way; though the most useful benefit she provided, for Harry’s purposes, was that her little hands could reach into places Harry’s couldn’t. He decided to keep that tiny piece of information to himself.

They weren’t quiet as they worked. The Speed Lab soon echoed with the sounds of lively conversation, as well as animated argument whenever Harry couldn’t quite curb his micromanaging tendencies. When they weren’t bickering about whether Cecile should list the measurements horizontally or vertically, they were chatting about each other. Contrary to his usual policy on interpersonal dialogue, this time Harry ended up being the one who asked the most questions.

This wasn’t just because he was excited to be conversing with a human being other than Nash for once, though that certainly was a factor. Rather, he was worried that any ground he gave to discussing himself would lead to questions about Nash’s history that Harry might not be able to answer. He hoped that Nash’s usual reticence to talk about his mysterious past would render any attempt Harry made to deflect attention unexceptional. Conscious of their proximity, Harry also carefully tried to keep himself from sending off any of the heightened waves of emotion he was presently experiencing.

At some point, Harry began to feel an uncomfortable clawing in his stomach that he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t until Cecile looked at her watch and exclaimed she would be late for lunch with a client if she didn’t leave straightaway, that Harry realised the sensation he was feeling was hunger. When you hadn’t had the ability to eat for months, you had a tendency to forget that it was necessary. The two of them put their tools down and cleaned themselves up before leaving the room together, Cecile at Harry’s elbow.

“I’m glad you’re here, Nash.” Cecile remarked suddenly, fixing the collar of her smart business jacket.

Harry grimaced into the towel he was using to wipe his face, but when he emerged, he nodded courteously.

“I know it hasn’t always been easy,” she continued, “but I think you’re a valuable presence on the team, and I _know_ they’re a good influence on you.”

“We’ll see.” Harry chuckled. 

Cecille jabbed a finger into the air, signalling that whatever she was about to say, would brook no argument.

“I guarantee one day you’ll start to think of this as home.”

“Thanks…”

Harry knew how true that sentiment had been for him, and he knew it was selfish to hope that it wouldn’t be as true for Nash. He couldn’t help himself but continue.

“…because honestly I have no idea what happened to my old house after Crisis. It’s probably been in someone’s else family for generations at this point, and I gotta tell you, I do not have the money for rent.”

“You know sometimes you,” Cecile shook her head, making a half-exasperated sound, “you remind me of someone.”

“I get that a lot around here.” Harry shrugged.

Cecile laughed. “Yeah, he was a smartass too.”

She left it there, but Harry couldn’t stop thinking about her comment. He couldn't be certain, but there was a part of him that was sure she had been thinking of him. Harry was pleased to know that his memory hadn’t been entirely erased from Team Flash, though why Cecile should ever compare Nash to him, Harry had no idea. What did he have in common with a snarky, sarcastic scoundrel with a tendency to rush headfirst into danger? It would have to remain a mystery.

Cecile left him at the entry to the break room, a place Harry had never physically set foot in, but had followed Nash through often enough. He bid a bittersweet farewell to the former district attorney before making a beeline to the break room’s refrigerator, becoming more aware by the second how much this fragile human frame was crying out for sustenance.

With an expertise developed through years of dedicated practice, Harry loaded and flicked on the coffee machine without even looking at it, as he perused the fridge’s unimpressively stocked shelves. There was little for him to scavenge, until he opened the vegetable crisper. Inside, there was a plastic tupperware container with the label ‘Cisco’ written across the lid in thick, black marker.

Nice try Ramon, but the crisper trick had never worked on Harry before, and it wasn’t about to stop him now. Besides, Cisco was off travelling who knows where and he wasn’t going to miss this selection of cupcakes and frosted biscuits until he got back, which was a future problem, not a present one. Harry opened the box and dug into the cookies as he poured a cup of coffee.

Turning around, his hands full of stolen treats, Harry froze like a deer in headlights to find a person with long, dark hair staring right at him. His first frantic thought was that Cisco had caught him in the middle of his heist, but it was immediately obvious that this was not the case.

“What?” The girl staring at him asked impatiently from over the top of her laptop screen.

“Oh, it’s you.” The words came out muffled with Harry’s mouth full of cookie. He quickly swallowed.

“Yeah?” She agreed. “So?”

The girl, Allegra he recalled, was still staring at him expectantly. Harry stared right back, bewildered, until he remembered who she thought she was talking to.

It wouldn’t do for Harry to have his cover blown now by someone who wouldn’t even understand who he was. From her perspective, if Allegra realised Nash wasn’t himself she would probably just conclude that he was being possessed again. Which he was, but Harry wasn’t about to let himself get exorcised, he had things to do first.

So Harry had to get back into character as Nash Wells, and quickly. Let’s see, all he had to do was pretend to be a stubborn, sceptical wiseass who’d seen too many Indiana Jones movies. For some reason the process was simpler than he expected. Harry looked at Allegra, allowing his eyebrows to drop and plastering an unsure half-smile on his face.

“What are you working on?”

He kept his voice hesitantly curious, and Harry felt he did an admirable job at replicating the awkward tone of a cautious rogue desperately looking to be a pseudo-father figure.

“None of your business.”

“Right.” Harry affected a slight tinge of disappointment. “Well, if you need any help. I’m always here.”

Harry really hoped she didn’t need any help. If he was going to pass as Nash, anything Allegra asked would become his priority, and honestly he had more important things do. Surely one of the benefits of being a phantom was that he didn’t have to do Nash’s faux-paternal homework for him.

Allegra rolled her eyes. “Not likely.”

Well that was his job done, Harry shrugged. At least Nash wouldn’t be able to complain that he’d made the rapport any worse than it was before. Harry sipped his coffee, letting the rush of caffeine hit his bloodstream for the first time in much too long. He wasn’t sure he’d gone this much time without a cup of coffee since he was about twelve years old.

“Why do you look different?” Allegra asked suddenly, interrupting the euphoria of his re-caffeination. 

Harry started, having completely forgotten she was even in the room. After a quick glance over his t-shirted appearance, Harry wondered if perhaps he should have re-equipped himself with Nash’s paraphernalia before he left the lab. He made a face that he hoped communicated a deep sense of the absurdity of the question.

“I’m not a cartoon character, you know. I do have more than one outfit.”

“You washed your face.” She added, accusatorily.

Harry didn’t know what to say to that.

“It was an accident?” was the best he could come up with.

Silence fell again, and Allegra went back to her laptop, though Harry thought he saw the corner of her lips quirk slightly. He let her work as he sipped his coffee, polishing off Cisco’s stash and fiddling with the buttons on Nash’s bracer. Every so often, Harry caught himself glancing up at the un-forthcoming girl sitting cross-legged on the sofa. There was no question that he understood acutely why Nash was so obsessed with connecting with her.

Harry couldn’t imagine how he would behave if they came across Jesse’s doppelganger now. There was no scenario in which he kept a clear head, no possible outcome to that situation where he would be able to rationally separate her from the daughter he’d lost. Harry shoved that thought back to the dark reaches of his mind it had broken free from. It was somehow more painful to consider now that he had a real throat to constrict, and a real heart pounding in his chest. It was simpler, as a phantom, to push those feelings away. Now that he’d temporarily taken over a real body, it was all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that he himself was real; that his feelings mattered.

Harry sighed. He’d commandeered the guy’s body, the least he could do was not alienate his chief tether to this new reality even further. Besides, Harry could have sworn he’d seen a hint of amusement earlier when he’d delivered his terrible excuses, and he’d certainly had his own share of experience trying to relate to a smart, temperamental, focused young woman who thought she knew better than him.

“Hey.”

Harry broke the silence and Allegra looked up, unimpressed.

“This isn’t me bugging you.” He continued.

“It isn’t?”

“Nope. In fact I’m not even here.”

“You aren’t?”

Harry shook his head, that statement was truer than Allegra knew.

“What I am, is a friendly ghost. Just a distant spectral voice telling you that I’m sorry for being an intense weirdo sometimes. Actually, all the time.”

Harry pointed to himself, poking Nash’s chest.

“I have issues. You have issues. Frankly everybody who’s ever set foot in this building is bursting with issues. And this ghost is just letting you know that if you ever need to escape your issues, I’m over here with some fascinating issues of my own you can distract yourself with instead.”

Allegra looked taken aback, though not entirely hostile.

“You’re weird.”

“I am.” Harry nodded. “I’m also kind of clever, and I’m okay at solving problems too, if you ever hear of anything like that coming up.”

Allegra lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Weren’t you supposed to be some ghost who wasn’t bugging me anymore?”

“You are correct, and I am now returning to the aether.”

Harry backed out of the room, making a low humming noise, the final frosted cookie between his teeth. Once out of sight, he pointed Nash’s bracer at the coffee mug still on the counter. He flicked a couple of buttons and used the energy field he’d just discovered to cause the mug float to towards him as he continued to make that ghostly noise.

From inside the break room Harry heard a huff of amused confusion and decided to take that as a good sign. Most people might not think it of him, but Harry found that sometimes the best way to connect with someone was to let them see you be a little dorky. It was better to be a goofy dad than it was to be a sensible adult whose daughter didn't talk to him. If this interaction had assisted at all, which was definitely yet to be determined, Nash was going to owe him one.

In a newly renewed good mood, Harry took his rapidly cooling coffee back to the artificial Speedforce. Walking through the door, Harry could see he was not alone in the Speed Lab. Was there no end to the stream of people milling about S.T.A.R. Labs, trying to distract him from his task?

“Hey.” Barry greeted him, acknowledging Harry’s presence with a look that suggested he’d rather be left alone.

“Allen.” Harry returned the greeting automatically, before panicking. “Uh…wrench. Allen wrench, yep that’s what I was looking for - ah there it is. Hi Barry.”

Harry plucked one tool from the many strewn across the floor. It was not an Allen wrench but Barry wasn’t paying enough attention to notice.

Collecting Nash’s belongings from where he’d thrown them earlier, Harry watched as Barry circled the Speedforce sphere, crouching down to inspect its configuration. Harry shrugged Nash’s olive green jacket over his shoulders.

“Something wrong?” He asked, trying to remember which side Nash usually slung his utility belt on.

Barry looked surprised to be spoken to, but quickly affected a cheerful expression.

“No, we’ve actually made more progress on this thing than I thought. We… might be able to pull this off.”

“Was there any doubt?” Harry tugged Nash’s gloves onto his hands.

Barry gave a hollow sort of laugh.

“I can’t take anything for granted any more. Not since I lost contact with the Speedforce, the real one. There’s nowhere I can really turn for guidance.”

“Sure, but the Speedforce was kind of a jerk anyway.”

Barry turned to look at Harry, eyebrows raised.

“It was an interconnected force that flowed through space, time and life itself.” He explained incredulously.

“Yeah but wasn’t it just so preachy about it?”

That one got a real laugh. Barry shook his head tiredly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I just wish I knew if what I’m doing is the thing I’m supposed to be doing.”

Harry crossed to him and rested his hand on Barry’s shoulder, looking the man straight in the eye.

“Barry, you don’t need a mystical entity with pretensions of grandeur to tell you when you’re making a mistake. In your years as the Flash you’ve fought, and you’ve raced, and you’ve outsmarted countless threats to this city. No matter what you think, it wasn’t the Speedforce that did that, it was you.”

“I guess I have no choice but to believe that.”

“I’m proud of you.” Harry told him.

They were words Harry had thought a million times, but they weren’t ones he would’ve ever been comfortable saying, before.

“This setback isn’t going to slow you down. Figuratively of course.” Harry joked, indicating Barry’s flashing watch.

“….Thanks Nash.” Barry looked from Harry’s face to the hand still on his shoulder. “You feeling alright?”

“Never been better.”

Harry winked, drawing his hand back and grabbing a circuit board resting against the sphere’s base. If Barry was going to be working in here, Harry would apply his talents to other tasks. He left the pleasantly confused Barry behind him as he headed upstairs, circuit board tucked under his arm. The workshop was silent but for the buzzing of the light fixtures, when Harry arrived.

It was several moments before he could actually bring himself to cross the threshold into the room. He’d been in there non-corporeally plenty of times of course, but it felt different now that he was really here. Harry’s hand travelled lightly over Cisco’s desk, fingers trailing along the surface as if he could feel the memories of a thousand different projects, the plethora of impossible plans, and the innumerable sleepless nights that were folded into its impassive resin.

A grunt came from behind the stacks of equipment at the back of the workshop, breaking Harry’s contemplation. That same grunt was followed by the sound of something falling, shortly followed again by several more things clattering to the ground. Harry frowned, wondering who would be messing around in Cisco’s headquarters, or if perhaps, as the small voice in the back of his head posited, it was the man himself.

Harry’s investigation was soon complete as he rounded a stack of shelves and was immediately confronted by the unnaturally overextended figure of one Ralph Dibny. Boxes littered the ground at Ralph’s feet, though the top half of him was somewhere up near the ceiling, where he was rummaging around the top shelf.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Harry barked upwards.

Ralph looked down, alarmed, until he saw who it was accosting him.

“Oh good, it’s just you. For a second I thought I was in trouble.”

“You still might be, what are you messing around with?”

Harry couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw Ralph shrug.

“Cecile passed a case onto me, and I’m pretty sure the meta I’m tracking has some kinda shape-shifting abilities. I just know Cisco has some thingamajig or other that can help me find them.”

“So you're stealing tech.” Harry growled.

“Hey,” Ralph ducked his head down, “don’t you get all high and mighty on me mister, or I’ll tell Barry what happened to his chemical compounds last time he left his CSI bag unsupervised.”

Harry breathed out an exasperated sigh as Ralph returned, empty-handed, to his normal height, sending another few items clattering to the ground as he went. 

“Didn’t find what you’re looking for?”

“Nah, I mean it was a long shot, I don’t know what half of this stuff does anyway.” For emphasis, Ralph kicked a piece of equipment by his foot. He peered at Harry. “Hey why do you look so smug, do you know what I’m looking for?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Harry told him, with a straight face.

He did actually know exactly what Ralph was looking for, but he was pretty sure Nash wouldn’t, and if keeping up his disguise just happened to mess with Ralph Dibny? Well, Harry couldn’t help that fact.

“Figures, now I’ll just have to find the mark myself.”

“Actual detective work,” Harry gasped, “what is the world coming to?”

Ralph made a face, then squinted at him.

“And what exactly are you doing messing around in here anyway? Cecile told me you’d been clanging away at the speedy ball all day.”

“I was.” Harry replied, defensively. “I am. I needed some things. It’s none of your business.”

Ralph gestured for him to calm down.

“Okay buddy, I was just asking. Geez, bite my head off much? Besides, we'd both be in for a lecture if Cisco caught us in here, he treats this place like his Santom Sanatorium.”

“Sanctom Sanctorum.” Harry corrected.

“Whatever, point is, he won’t want either of touching his stuff without supervision.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Your funeral.” Ralph’s face twitched slightly. “I better go.”

“Fine by me.”

Ralph walked over to the door, but paused just before leaving. Slowly, he turned to look behind him.

“It was nice talking to you…Harry.”

Suddenly, there was a loud ringing in Harry’s ears. His feet were glued to the ground and a cold sensation was sinking down his body.

“What- h, how-” he stuttered, “how did you know?”

“Oh thank god!” A huge grin broke across Ralph’s face. “That would have been so embarrassing if I got it wrong, especially after I nailed the dramatic turn.”

“You didn’t even know!”

Harry was equal parts impressed and infuriated by Ralph’s cheek; a classic Dibny conundrum.

“Not for sure. But come on man, Sanctum Sanctorum? You think Nash has ever read a comic book in his life? His life basically _is_ a comic book.”

Harry groaned. “Great, so that’s what gave me away.”

“Nah, that was just the biggest clue. You can’t slip one by me that easy fella. I’ve got a keen detective’s eye.” Ralph tapped his head to demonstrate and accidentally poked himself in his keen detective’s eye. “Ow.”

“Well when I run into any keen detectives, I’ll make sure to let them know you’re holding onto it for them.”

Ralph shook his head, but he wasn’t about to be baited.

“I clocked you early man.” He boasted. “I wasn’t sure, but you getting pissed that I was messing around in here? That was a red flag. Nash wouldn’t care.”

“Yeah probably not.” Nash was more likely to join in the scavenging if anything.

“Besides, dude’s been talking to himself for a while, and after the Reverse Flash weirdness, it wasn’t hard to put together. Not to mention, Nash wears it on the other side.”

Ralph finished with a flourish, pointing to the band stretching across Harry’s chest. Harry groaned and quickly rearranged the utility belt to his opposite shoulder.

“You’re more observant than you let on, Dibny.”

Ralph winked. “Trick of the trade.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

Ralph rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets with a kind of forced nonchalance.

“So, are you back for good now?” He asked, too casually.

Harry was honest.

“I’m not sure. I’m on borrowed time running around in Nash’s body, no idea how long I’ll be stuck in his head. Just trying to get as much done as I can before I go.”

Warring emotions seemed to be pulling at Ralph as he considered Harry’s words. Eventually, his obnoxiously positive side won out.

“Hey, why don’t you come have a drink with me?” He offered. “I’ll get everyone here and we can celebrate properly, or commiserate and memorialise you, whichever you prefer.”

Harry shook his head. He wouldn’t lie, the thought was tempting. However, it was the opposite of what he should be doing, what he should be wanting.

“I’m busy.”

He couldn’t really say anything else. There was no simple way to tell Ralph that he didn’t warrant a celebration because he was only a half-remembered projection of a person, and not a human being. After the day he’d had, he was having trouble reminding himself of that.

“Alright,” Ralph didn’t sound convinced, “but if you change your mind, I’ll be around.”

“Sure.”

For the second time that afternoon, Ralph paused before walking out the door.

“If you happen to see Sherloque rattling around in that communal head of yours, tell him I said hi.”

“Will do, baby giraffe.”

Ralph looked shocked, but Harry just shrugged. It would have been too tough to explain the complex interconnected webs of mental association that allowed him to pull that nickname from the recesses of their semi-shared consciousness. Ralph tsked.

“Sherly would have had a drink with me.” He lamented.

“Well there’s no accounting for taste.”

Ralph smirked. “It was good to see you again, Harry.”

With that, he finally walked out the door, leaving Harry alone. Harry watched him go, an annoying detail playing at his conscience the entire way. He sighed.

“Wait!” Harry called out in a reluctant monotone.

Ralph was back in an instant, grinning. “Reconsider that drink?”

“No.”

Harry moved to a cabinet in the corner of the room, opening it and pulling out a device that looked like a camera, with a number of coloured dials lining its side. He held it out to Ralph.

“That should help you find the meta you’re looking for.”

Ralph took it from him and then looked at Harry appraisingly.

“Yeah, alright, this is happening.”

“What- What’s happening? Oh god.” Harry was swept into Ralph’s arms as the lanky man pulled him into a hug.

“This is good Harry, this is healing.”

“For whom?”

When Ralph released him, Harry was still grumpily protesting the affection but inwardly he couldn’t help the cheerful glow that Ralph’s easy friendship gave him. It was nice to be able to talk with someone as himself, not as Nash. Even if Ralph wasn’t his first choice, he couldn’t deny the man was good company.

“You’re gonna get that drink with me.” Ralph declared, confidently. 

Harry winked. “Raincheck.”

“I’ll hold you to that, you know.”

With one more determined look and a self-assured gesture, Ralph was gone and Harry was left shaking his amused but long-suffering head. He grabbed the circuit board he’d hauled up from the Speed Lab and set it on his workbench, switching on the bright table lamp to get a better view of the system.

It had been a long time since Harry had worked with his hands, or had hands to work with. There was a pleasant rhythm to this labour that allowed Harry’s thoughts to wander. It wasn’t that his brain was disengaged, but rather that his mind and hands were working in such synchronicity, that it felt like the task had already been done for him. It was as if the modifications had already been made, and all Harry had to do was reveal them.

As the day grew longer, Harry realised with some frustration that he wouldn’t be able to finish the job before Nash was returned to his body and Harry was ousted. Secretly, he’d hoped that in this time he would be the one to make the breakthrough to complete the Speedforce. It had been ambitious to the point of foolishness to imagine that he might have solved the entire problem in a single day, but what was Harry good at if not overestimating his own abilities in the name of science. 

Still, he supposed he couldn’t be too dismayed at the effect he’d had on Team Flash in his short time at the wheel. The Harry of ten years ago would have considered the moderate progress he’d made on the Speedforce an abject failure. That Harry would have seen the interruptions and distractions that disrupted his progress as nothing more than pointless prattle obscuring the only worthwhile objective. But Harry wasn’t that man anymore, in more ways than one.

Before Harry knew it, night had fallen. He hadn’t returned to the Speed Lab, as he’d planned to. On the contrary, he’d found himself incapable of leaving the workshop, as if his mind was refusing to relinquish this last hesitant grasp on normalcy. Ralph had tested this commitment, appearing in Harry’s field of vision every few hours to cash in on Harry’s raincheck, but Harry had held his ground. Now, as a shadow once again fell across the doorway, Harry didn’t even turn his head to look.

“I’m not getting drunk with you.” Harry announced to the board as he fused a wire to its circuitry.

“As if I asked.”

That was not Ralph Dibny. The voice that drifted in from the doorway wrapped itself around Harry’s chest, causing his heart to begin beating wildly against its cage. Harry’s head snapped towards the source as he straightened up from his hunched position over the workbench.

There he was. Those soft round cheeks couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. Nor was there any mistaking the waves of silky, dark hair that Harry’s hands knew so well.

“Ramon.” Harry breathed, before he could stop himself.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Harry heard Cisco inhale sharply. When he opened them again, Cisco was appraising him with a wary look, seemingly gazing both at Harry, and through him. It was as if he’d seen a ghost, which was just as well, all things considered.

Cisco’s heavy backpack thunked to the ground as he stepped inside the room. Harry tried to stop looking at him, or at least to regulate his fiercely beating heart. Harry’s hands fluttered from hips, to his pockets, to the workbench and back again like restless bats unable to find an appropriate perch.

“W-what are you doing here?” Harry choked out, not quite meeting Cisco’s eyes.

“I work here. Why are you here?”

“I uh, I needed a- I’m working on the…”

Harry gestured at the workbench, at the room in general and in the vague direction of the artificial Speedforce at the other end of the Labs. He quickly gave up on explaining himself and crossed his arms instead.

“I thought you were travelling.” The way he said it was almost accusatory.

“I came back.”

Harry swallowed. On its own, the announcement was simple enough, but to Harry it was nothing less than a revelation. He’d come back. On the same day Harry had seized control of his agency, Cisco had come home, just as Harry had. Harry was not a man who believed in fate, but he was having a difficult time trying to argue with it right now.

Harry nodded, as if this sentiment was indeed as trivial as it seemed.

“Okay well,” he croaked, “I’ve got everything I need. I’ll get out of your way.”

He made to brush past Cisco, every second in his presence weakened Harry’s resolve. Before he could leave, Cisco held out a hand, barring his exit.

“Look at me.” Cisco’s voice was quiet, but firm.

“Why?”

“Shut up and look at me.”

Reluctantly, Harry steeled himself and slowly met Cisco’s gaze. His deep brown eyes, usually alight with humour, were touched with dark rings that Harry wished he could simply wipe away.

“Harry?” Cisco whispered, as tentative as he was hopeful.

At that moment, there was nothing Harry could say to deny it, and god he didn’t want to deny it. He imagined trying to pretend otherwise, to tell Cisco that he was not a person, only a phantom in the shape of Harrison Wells. Cisco wouldn’t believe it for a second. He’d say Harry was being ridiculous, and cut through the bullshit to voice the very thing that Harry knew but didn’t want to confront; Harrison Wells was not gone, he was standing right here.

Phantoms couldn’t feel the way Harry felt. No shade or memory could experience the pain and relief that Harry did, looking into Cisco’s eyes again. Harry was not a guide; not a shadow in another man’s mind. The truth that Harry couldn’t bear to believe, until now, was that he was still a person. He was Harry Wells - a living soul who hurt and loved and yearned - and whose entire being was crying out for the man standing two feet in front of him.

Harry nodded and Cisco’s breath hitched.

“Ralph told you.” He guessed.

Cisco shook his head, eyes wild.

“What are you talking about? No-one told me anything.”

“Then how did you-?”

An indignant look from Cisco silenced him. Cisco took a few steps back, looking Harry up and down, confirming his presence over and over again.

“You think dying is going to stop me remembering what you look like?”

“I look like Nash.” Harry reminded him.

Cisco made a face.

“You think I could forget the way you stand? How you talk? The way you look at me? Harry, I see you every day. I see you every time I close my eyes. You couldn’t look less like Nash if you tried.”

Harry’s mouth quirked in protest.

“Well I don’t know if that’s true. If I tried I probably could… are you laughing at me?”

Cisco was indeed laughing at him, his eyes shining.

“Fuck it really is you, isn't it.”

“Yeah.” Harry confirmed, awkwardly.

“How?” Cisco asked. “How are you here? Where did you go? Are you projecting from somewhere…?”

His questions trailed off as Harry shook his head. There was a hope in his voice, and a mounting eagerness at the possibility that Harry might just be alive out there somewhere. This was what Harry was afraid of, what he had desperately tried to avoid. He didn’t know how long he was going to stay in Nash’s head, and he couldn’t bear the thought of letting Cisco down again.

“I’m in Nash’s subconscious, have been for a little while. I don’t know how exactly. As far as I can surmise, it has to do with Eobard Thawne’s reckless experimentation with cosmic forces and Wells’ DNA. This,” he gestured to himself in Nash’s body, “was an accident. I don’t know how long I have left.”

Cisco nodded, slowly coming to terms with this information.

“So you might…”

“I might leave again.” Harry’s jaw tightened as he watched the light in Cisco’s face dim.

“How long have you been in Nash’s head?”

“A couple months.” Harry hedged. He had a sense where this was going.

Cisco shrugged. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Well, I-”

“Oh I’m all ears, pal. Why don’t you explain it to me?” Cisco’s face was stern and Harry shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“I was, ah. Well you see- I didn’t think that I was-” Harry looked away, refusing to meet Cisco’s eye. “I presumed that because I no longer had a body, that I was not, in the strictest sense, a person. So I figured that I probably shouldn’t bother the people that were, moving on, because I, ah- wasn’t real.”

“Did it, at any point, occur to you that the fact you could even think that probably proved that you were wrong?”

Harry’s expression didn’t change as he murmured out a soft, “Uh-huh.”

“I see. But you didn't think to pursue that issue? Or maybe to mention it to literally anyone else who might have a slightly different perspective? Maybe one of those people you were so graciously helping to ‘move on’?”

“Uh-uh.” Harry mumbled, with the same stoic expression.

“Great.”

“It was all Nash’s idea.” Harry quickly invented the explanation, throwing Nash under the bus with ease. His gaze flicked back to Cisco who reluctantly cracked a chagrined smile.

“Sure. So I guess I should get pissed at him, not you?”

Harry nodded. “That would seem to be the smartest course of action.”

“Of course it would.”

In the pause that followed Harry took a deep breath, eyes travelling over Cisco’s face, reminding himself of every inch.

“I watched you though.” Harry told him. “When I’m in Nash’s head, sometimes I can break away far enough to find you. Then I- I sit beside you and- well, I’m there, with you.”

“Alright Swayze, very dramatic.”

“Hey! I’m just letting you know I never stopped trying to be with you,” Harry’s voice cracked, “even if you didn’t know I was there.”

When he finally replied, Cisco’s tone had shifted playfully.

“Well you know what this means then?”

“You’re going to have to take up pottery.” Harry answered.

“My thoughts exactly.”

As they grinned at each other, Cisco took a step forward then stopped, his hand hesitantly playing at Harry’s collar.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, voice gentle. Cisco smiled sadly.

“I, uh… I want to kiss you, like, really bad. I’m just not sure how cool it is to do that in Nash’s body.”

Harry closed the gap between them, one arm hooked around Cisco’s waist, the other hand cupping his face softly.

“He started the apocalypse, he owes me this one.”

Cisco’s laugh came out sounding half like a sob, and it might well have been. Harry knew too well how he felt. The relief after so many months of pain, coupled with a sudden implausible happiness, was enough to feel almost guilty caught in the midst of it.

Harry ducked his head down and pressed his lips to Cisco’s, kissing him with a ferocity he hadn’t intended. Cisco’s grip on his jacket tightened and pulled him forwards to eliminate the non-existent space between their two bodies. Harry’s hand threaded through Cisco’s hair, holding him like at any moment he might evaporate into vapor, as if Cisco was the flight risk, not him.

Harry couldn’t have told you how long they stayed there, locked in each other’s arms, unwilling to let go, as if by holding onto the other, they could eliminate the possibility of ever losing each other again. Harry drew his head back, and Cisco reluctantly let him breathe. He’d been non-corporeal so long, it felt as if he’d forgotten how to use his lungs.

“I’m sorry.” Harry gasped out, when he could speak again.

Cisco frowned. “What for?”

What for? What wasn’t Harry sorry for? For dying. For coming back and not telling him. For leaving Earth-1 in the first place. For Cisco being alone. For not being able to stop the Anti-Monitor. For not being there to help.

“For not being enough. I couldn’t- I wasn’t smart enough to stop it.”

Cisco shook his head vehemently.

“Harry, there was nothing you could have done. It swept the other Earths, took them one by one, it was too big, you didn’t stand a chance. We were the ones, we should have been the ones to bring them back.” Cisco stepped away, out of Harry’s arms and wiped a hand over his mouth.

“You did everything you could.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

Harry tried to embrace him again but Cisco stepped away. He looked as if he was warring with himself, trying to settle an argument over whether or not to continue. Harry watched him deliberate, not sure what he could do to help, until Cisco finally fixed him with a troubled stare. He took a few tries before he found his voice.

“He came to us for help. _Earth-1_.” Cisco spat the phrase like a curse. “What the hell is so special about Earth-1? But the Monitor sure as hell made sure we were the only ones who knew. Us and a handful of people from other Earths were apparently the only ones allowed to fight for the multiverse.”

Cisco broke Harry’s gaze and began to pace the length of the workshop, the despair in his voice slowly working its way to anger.

“We tried. The Monitor’s chosen few. We tried to save the multiverse, and we failed.”

Cisco whipped around, voice raising louder.

“We failed! We didn’t save anyone! There are thousands, millions, billions of lives out there that are just gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Like they never existed. And as far as this world is concerned, they didn't.”

When Cisco’s eyes found Harry again, they were welling with angry tears.

“But they did. They did exist and we failed to save them. We _failed_ and everybody out there is acting like we didn’t.”

He threw a hand out, gesturing to the rest of S.T.A.R. Labs and presumably the rest of the planet too.

“Everybody’s acting like we saved the day, like we did the best we could do and that this- this Frankenstein of a world we have now is somehow a good thing?”

Harry had never heard Cisco so angry.

“And now I have to live in this knowledge.” Cisco jabbed violently at his chest. “That we get to keep living and breathing and that there are billions of lives, real people with hopes, and ambitions and love, and families, that didn’t win the luck of the draw to be in this new universe and instead were snuffed out of existence. And I’m supposed to be okay with the fact that we just left it there?”

Cisco shook his head at Harry, the fight draining from him. 

“So don’t you ever apologise for not doing enough. We were the ones who didn’t demand more. We didn’t go back and try again. We haven’t even been searching for a solution. We’re just supposed to act like none of them ever existed. Like you never existed.”

In a few short steps Harry had crossed the room and wrapped Cisco in his arms. Cisco clung to him, face pressed into his chest, those angry tears now falling freely and dampening the front of Harry’s shirt.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Everyone’s gone, Harry. Everyone’s gone and no-one’s talking about it.”

Harry let Cisco cry, rubbing circles into his back as he thought.

“Maybe they can’t.” Harry surprised himself by saying it. “This- this thing that happened is bigger than anything that’s ever happened to anyone. They might not be talking about it because they can’t talk about it. There may not be space in them to allow the full weight of what happened to sink in, because if they felt it, it’d break them.”

Harry rested his chin on the top of Cisco’s head.

“But you’re different. No-one has a bigger heart than you. You care so much, you always have, and that’s why it hurts so badly.”

Cisco sniffed.

“When the hell did you get so good at emotions?”

“A magic helmet made me stupid.”

“Oh yeah.” Cisco choked out a laugh.

“I know you Ramon, and I know that whatever part you played, you did everything you could. If things didn’t turn out the way they should, there is no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t your fault.”

Cisco lifted his head, face washed with tears.

“I couldn’t save you.”

Harry cocked his head to the side and shrugged.

“Hey, I couldn’t save me either, and if I couldn’t do it, what chance did you have?”

Cisco punched him lightly on the shoulder. “That’s not funny.”

“It is a little bit.”

Once Cisco had wiped his face dry on Harry’s shirt, the two of them went in search of a more comfortable locale, eventually digging their old couch out from a pile of cluttered junk in the corner. Unearthing it from under a tarpaulin neither of them were sure had ever been used, they dragged it along the floor into the centre of the room. Harry was pleased (and a little jealous) to note that Nash apparently did not have the same allergy to dust mites as he had. Harry’s arm draped comfortably over Cisco’s shoulders as Cisco filled him in on the major changes since Earth Prime’s inception, some that Harry already knew about, and some that prompted further investigation.

“So now that Supergirl is from this Earth, does that mean you have to deal with Lex Luthor too?”

Cisco shrugged, not seeming too concerned about the wily snake oil salesman that had commandeered a place on the Paragon squad.

“Kara deals with him mostly. We don’t see him very often, but I know she hates that dude.”

“I don’t blame her.” Harry affirmed. “We had a Lex on my earth. His corporation was always nipping at mine’s heels.”

“Oh no, what a crime.” Cisco complained sarcastically.

“I worked hard to get S.T.A.R. Labs where it was, I didn’t need that attention-grabbing bastard trying to muscle his way into the spotlight.”

“Of course, because Mr Harrison ‘I should call a press conference about this’ Wells would never stoop so low as to do something for the attention.”

“Hey! That’s Dr ‘I should call a press conference about this’ to you.”

“I’m very sorry, I’ll make sure to add that to my notes.”

Cisco was joking, of course, but his choice of phrase caught Harry off guard. The fact was that Cisco did have notes, comprehensive lists of the living and the dead, and being suddenly reminded of them had caused a notion Harry had been successfully supressing, to finally surface.

“You know, you probably know more about the discrepancies between this Earth and yours, than anyone else on the planet.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration, Cisco’s mission to track down and catalogue the inhabitants of Earth-1 made him the top authority on universal incongruities on Earth.

“Yeah,” Cisco exhaled, “I try not to think about that.”

“You haven’t, by any-” Harry shifted in his seat, unsure if he was actually about to ask this question or not, and whether he was ready for the answer. He kept his gaze trained on the far end of the room, without really seeing it.

He cleared his throat and tried again.

“There isn’t a chance is there, that on your trip, you managed to find…” Harry’s voice failed as emotion threatened to choke him.

Fortunately, Cisco understood without needing him to attempt to finish the question. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Cisco shake his head sadly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think she’s here.”

Harry nodded, his brow furrowed as he kept his eyes trained on the back of the room, blinking back the searing pressure forming behind his eyes.

“Yeah that’s-” his voice was gruff and scraped painfully against his throat, “that’s what I thought.”

“Harry?”

“Mm-hmm.” Harry struggled to keep his voice level.

“Look at me.”

With great effort, Harry did as he asked.

“It’s okay to feel it.”

Cisco said it so kindly that Harry almost broke right then and there. It was almost worse that Cisco acknowledged his pain, because it meant Harry would have to as well.

Okay to feel? Until relatively recently, nothing about that was okay. Harry had kept his feelings inside for so much of his life that the concept was alien to him. He was new to it, didn’t know the rules yet, but if Cisco was telling him he could, Harry would take his word for it.

“I don’t know how.”

A flicker of some heart-wrenching emotion passed over Cisco’s face at Harry’s admission, but it was quickly replaced by a compassionate resolve.

“Tell me about it.” He encouraged him. “Try to put it into words, and tell me how you’re feeling.”

Harry paused, trying to find his voice, but shut his eyes tight as agony gripped his chest once again. As he struggled to control his uneven breath, Harry remembered what he’d told Cisco about people verbalising their pain. Harry hadn’t allowed himself to think about Jesse’s fate because he didn’t have the capacity to feel the weight of her death without it breaking him. Alone, he didn’t have the strength, but now that Cisco was here, he might be able to borrow some, at least for the time being.

After a few deep breaths, Harry spoke.

“She,” he began, haltingly, “she didn’t deserve it.”

“No, she didn’t.” Cisco agreed, in the silence that followed.

Harry’s hands were trembling and he couldn’t get them to stop.

“Jesse should’ve lived. She was too good not to live. She was the best of me, and far better than I ever was. It should have been me that died.”

At that, Cisco opened his mouth to interject, but closed it immediately afterwards, letting Harry continue to pour himself out.

“I guess in a way it was me, but it wasn’t enough. Anything she’s ever been through, I could throw myself in front of her, it could be me in the line of fire instead. But I couldn’t, not this time. And now she’s just, gone. That shouldn’t be possible. You can tell me that this is a universe without my daughter but I can’t even imagine it. A world without Jesse is… it’s not possible. It can’t be.”

Harry shook his head, eyes wild as he stared at Cisco, imploring him to understand, to see that he had to be wrong, they all had to be wrong.

“She can't be gone. My baby girl can't be gone.”

Cisco stroked his thumb across Harry’s cheek, wiping away a tear Harry hadn’t realised he’d let slip. He resisted the urge to steel himself. Though the thinking cap had broken down so many of his walls, crying in front of other people was still a line he found hard to cross. But Cisco wasn’t other people.

“I held her when she could barely open her eyes. I rocked her to sleep. I took her to school. I wiped her nose, made her eat her vegetables, laughed at her jokes, stuck her pictures on the fridge… I saw her grow up. It doesn’t make sense that she’s not here anymore. She can't be dead. She’s my daughter Cisco, she can’t be gone.”

Cisco reached out and Harry fell forward, his head buried in Cisco’s shoulder. She couldn’t be gone. Harry continued to repeat it as his voice grew hoarse, as if his persistence could somehow make it true. He sobbed into the crook of Cisco’s neck, his mantra gradually becoming softer until at some point, he fell silent. Cisco’s hand was in Harry’s hair, his fingers travelling back and forth in a soothing motion that did something to calm the aggressive pounding in Harry’s head.

There was nothing Cisco could say to make it better, to make it less wrong that Jesse was gone, so he didn’t. He simply ran his fingers through Harry’s hair, held him as he trembled, and let him sob until his tears ran dry. Harry wasn’t sure he’d ever cried like this before. When Tess had died, he’d been shattered, but he hadn’t had anyone to go to; the one person he’d had, was the very person he was grieving. This outpouring of emotion, of devastation, and the strange catharsis in the calm that followed, was different.

Finally, he straightened up, wiping his eyes with Nash’s t-shirt. He was exhausted, but against all odds, felt better than he had before.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cisco asked, softly.

Harry shook his head and sniffed. “I can’t.”

Every man had his limit, and Harry had hit his. He rolled his shoulders, releasing some of the tension that had developed in his muscles. Cisco let it go, silently allowing Harry to get himself back together. Harry exhaled, letting out a loud groan. 

“This sucks.” He grumbled eloquently, gesturing at the rest of the world.

Cisco laughed. “Yeah. It’s not great.”

Harry gave into the frustration of it all, regaining some sense of normalcy in his anger.

“Wish I’d been there to give the Monitor a piece of my mind.” He growled.

“Those muttonchops wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.”

“That’s probably why he didn’t recruit me, he knew my wit would devastate him.”

“That’s definitely it,” Cisco agreed, “otherwise you totally would have been a paragon. Harry Wells, Paragon of Snark.”

“Surely there’s a better title than that. Paragon of Pragmatism, perhaps.”

Cisco raised an eyebrow. “Paragon of Picking Fights.”

“Of finishing them more like.” Harry countered.

Cocking his head to the side, Cisco took a minute to earnestly consider the question.

“Alright I’ve got it. How about the Paragon of Dependability?”

“I’ll take it.” Harry leant in to kiss him, but Cisco wasn’t done.

“I was gonna say Reliability at first, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to, considering how often you lie through your teeth.”

Harry drew back, offended.

“I do not!” He lied.

“Oh come on, remember that time you convinced Ralph you had narcolepsy so you could pretend to fall asleep to get out of talking to him?”

“It’s a serious medical condition.”

“I know that!” Cisco exclaimed, exasperatedly. “You’re the one who lied about it.”

Harry shook his head.

“I thought you were better than this, Ramon. I can’t believe you would insult the memory of a dead man by calling him a liar.”

“That cannot be your new excuse.” Cisco groaned.

“I don’t make the rules. However, a wise man once called me a Paragon of Dependability, so I do follow them. And the rules state quite clearly that the dead man can exploit his death all he wants.”

“Paragon of Annoying Cisco Ramon.”

“Joke’s played out now.” Harry shrugged.

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Nerd.”

“Dork.”

Cisco grinned at Harry, but after a moment his smile began to falter.

“I have something to tell you.” He said, sounding nervous.

“If it’s about your cookies in the fridge, I have something to tell you too.”

Cisco chuckled weakly, and Harry frowned, waiting for Cisco to continue.

“I forgot you.” He admitted, quietly.

Harry shook his head, confused. Cisco took a while before he spoke again.

“It was when the universe re-formed. I lived my life as if you’d never been a part of it, and in a weird way you hadn’t. Then one day, out of nowhere Barry came back spouting nonsense, and then a Martian touched my head, and suddenly, I remembered.”

Harry felt cold. It was unsettling to hear how close he had come to having been completely wiped from existence. Or from Cisco’s memory, which was just as troubling.

“Suddenly, you were in my life again, and I couldn’t believe that the universe had ever managed to remove you from my head. It barely took a second for everything to come back, but there was a lifetime in there; meeting you, bickering, working, sharing our lives, falling in love with you. I love you, Harry.”

“I love you too.” Harry replied without a second thought, and marvelled at himself that he could so easily say something that would have been impossible not too long ago.

“And just as soon as I remembered all that, I remembered you were gone. It was the second time I’ve had to come to terms with your death. I couldn't go through it again.”

Harry swallowed. “I know.”

This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to reveal himself, but at least now he knew it would have been worse to remain a secret.

“I know I wasn’t the only one who had to be reminded, but I felt so guilty that I could have ever forgotten you.”

Harry paused, looking sideways at Cisco’s guilt-ridden expression.

“Frankly, I’m offended too.”

Cisco sat up, thwacking Harry’s chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be reassuring me?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that if I’m clearly not memorable enough for you.”

“It was the birth of a new universe, jackass!”

“Oh there’s always some excuse. ‘It's the birth of a new universe’ this, ‘you were carved out of existence’ that. It’s embarrassing at this point.”

Harry hoped his hyperbole would help Cisco realise how ridiculous it would be for Harry to blame him for not successfully battling against the tide of the entire universe.

“I think I know why you’re still in Nash’s head.” Cisco mused. “It’s because your ego is a fixed point in the fabric of reality and destiny had to rewrite itself around your sense of self-importance.”

Harry considered it.

“That makes sense.” He agreed. 

Cisco laughed, and the both of them settled back against the couch.

“God, I was so mad at him.” Cisco said into the silence.

“Who?”

“Nash.”

“I understand the feeling.”

Cisco shook his head, as if trying to clear his thoughts.

“He just wouldn’t let it go. He had to keep chasing down the myth. Just to prove, prove it was all a lie. He was rude, and arrogant, and stubborn, and just _knew_ he was right and was going to do whatever he needed to prove it, no matter what anyone said. He was just like-”

“Like me.” Harry finished.

Cisco made a face.

“Yeah, I suppose, in a way. That’s probably why he bugs me so much.” The corner of Cisco’s mouth rose reluctantly. “Probably why I kinda like him too, despite everything.”

Harry grinned and playfully squeezed Cisco’s shoulder. Cisco’s frown returned.

“He started it all though. He started everything. And even when he did, I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn’t really blame him. It wasn’t something any of us could have predicted. But you wouldn’t believe how angry I was through it all. Then, after I remembered you, I got mad all over again. Except this time, after J’onn gave me my memories back, I saw him do the same to Nash. I’ve never seen someone look the way he did that day.”

Cisco shivered, and when he continued, his voice was hushed.

“The look in his eyes was beyond haunted. It was beyond any emotion I’ve ever experienced, or could even describe. It was like those billions of lives weren’t just gone to Nash, but that he was watching them all die again. He was witnessing the death of a million planets right in front of us, knowing that it was his fault, and that there was nothing he could do. After that, he was back to his irritating old self as if nothing had happened. But I saw that look in his eyes, and now sometimes when I look at him, I can’t help seeing it just beneath the surface. It’s pretty hard to stay mad when I know nothing I can say will ever top that.”

Harry was quiet. He knew exactly what Cisco was talking about. Living in Nash’s head, he had an idea of Nash’s memories, his emotions, his thoughts, but there was a cold fragment - a murky part of Nash’s mind that seized you in its icy grip - and if you weren’t careful dragged you down into it

“That’ll never leave.”

“I know. Which sucks, ‘cause sometimes I just want to tell him he’s being an giant dumbass but then I remember he experienced the death of every soul in existence.”

“Well don’t hold back on my account. On behalf of all the vanquished souls I hereby give you permission to call Nash Wells an idiot whenever applicable. I know I do.” Harry emphasised.

“What are we going to do about him?”

“Believe me, I’ve asked myself the same question.”

Cisco leant into Harry, a warm weight against his chest.

“You’re gonna have to get better at being a ghost for one thing. Next step, object manipulation, so we can pass notes without Nash sticking his nose in.”

Harry grimaced. “I’ve tried. Those bottlecaps refuse to budge.”

“Alright,” Cisco sighed wearily, “but I don’t know how you’re going to summon the demons to fight Tony Goldwyn if you don’t keep practising.”

Harry smiled softly and thought for a moment, making an amused sound to himself before standing.

“What are you doing?” Cisco asked, but Harry waved away the question.

Cisco watched suspiciously as Harry fiddled with Nash’s bracer. In the course of his meddling he probably changed a hundred settings Nash wouldn’t be able to get right again; at that moment Harry couldn’t bring himself to care. In less than a minute Harry had successfully connected the bracer to the workshop’s speakers. Soon, the low sounds of the Righteous Brothers began floating into the room.

Cisco rolled his eyes when he realised what Harry was doing. A smile lit up his soft face as he laughed towards the ceiling.

“You dork.” He murmured as Harry knelt in front of him and held out his hand.

Regardless of the name-calling, he took Harry’s proffered palms and stood, drawing Harry up with him. He put his cheek to Harry’s shoulder, and Harry wrapped his arms around Cisco’s waist, as they swayed in time to the music. 

“Does that make Nash, Whoopi Goldberg in this scenario?” Cisco asked, his voice muffled in the fabric of Harry’s jacket.

“It does.” Harry nodded.

“I can see that.”

They swayed in each other’s arms. For that moment at least, their dance spoke for them.

“I missed you.” Cisco muttered quietly. “More than I’ve ever missed anything. More than I knew I could miss something.”

Harry made a noise of agreement. “Missing you was like a part of me was missing.”

“Yeah.”

“But…”

Harry set his jaw, an old stubbornness settling in and taking hold of his body. He looked down at Cisco, who was looking back up at him, confused.

“…even amongst the destruction of the multiverse, the evisceration of planets, the stars bursting into nothingness and an unprecedented, catastrophic, dimensional collapse…” Harry smirked. “…I still found a way to come back to pester you. Who’s to say I won’t do it again? I’d like to see the jumped-up, wannabe god that dared to try reaching back through the aether to stop me from teasing Cisco Ramon.”

A wide grin broke across Cisco’s face. It was the one that Harry would do anything in the world to see, and he couldn’t help the feeling that despite the fact that everything was still wrong, at least this moment was nothing but right. It was not a feeling that could last. As he and Cisco turned in a lazy circle, Harry saw, materialising in the air in front of him, a shape he knew all too well.

He blinked, praying he was imagining things, but it was no use. Nash Wells stepped out of the nothingness and immediately looked about himself in confusion. He spotted Harry, and after a second of indignant anger, looked from him to Cisco. In an instant, Nash seemed to realise what was going on. Harry felt an uncomfortable tug, as if something was physically yanking him away from where he stood. He looked accusatorily at Nash, but Nash was already shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, I can’t control it.” He explained, hands held out apologetically.

Harry nodded, knowing that Nash’s consciousness was being drawn back into its own body. Harry had officially overstayed his welcome. With that wrenching feeling still tugging at his stomach, Harry stilled, stopping Cisco mid-turn. With barely any time left to him, Harry pulled back and put a hand to Cisco’s cheek, looking him dead in the eye.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

In those few words, Harry tried to convey everything he still needed to say to Cisco. Swooping down to kiss him, Harry pressed his entire being into that kiss, and hoped it expressed to Cisco everything it was meant to. He closed his eyes, leaning forwards desperately. When he opened them again, Harry’s entire perspective had shifted, and he quickly realised he was now standing where Nash had stood only seconds before.

Harry watched helplessly as Nash returned to his own body at last, immediately drawing back from the kiss. His hands looked awkward on Cisco’s cheeks, his posture lanky and odd against his body. Harry saw Cisco look up and into Nash’s eyes, watched as a dismayed understanding dawned. 

Cisco hurriedly stepped out of Nash’s grip, and Nash jumped backwards just as quickly.

“I’m sorry-”

Nash tried to explain but Cisco interrupted his apology.

“Don’t worry about it.” He dismissed, with a hasty gesture.

After that brief exchange, neither of them could look at the other one. Cisco seemed deep in thought whilst Nash appeared to be trying to figure out what on earth he could say to mitigate the discomfort of the situation. Nash scratched his bristly chin, eyes darting around the room as he tried to think of something appropriate to comment on. The music cut off abruptly as the song ended, leaving them in total silence.

“He seems like a cool guy.” Nash offered, eventually.

Cisco stared at him, bewildered. “You mean Harry?”

Nash nodded, making Cisco laugh and Harry understood why. Nash was acting as if he was Cisco’s roommate who’d just had an awkward run in with his boyfriend, rather than operating as a vessel for a life-altering ghost possession that had allowed a precious moment of reunion between two separated souls. It was kind of touching in its absurdity.

“Yeah,” Nash continued awkwardly, “he seems nice.”

Cisco made a deliberative noise. “That’s not exactly the word I’d have used. But yeah, I like him fine.”

“Oh I know you do.” Nash chuckled, gesturing between him and Cisco at the space they’d, until recently, intimately occupied.

“You’re hopeless.”

“No, I mean it.” Nash hooked one hand onto his utility satchel and with the other, gestured in Harry’s general direction. “He seems like a real cool guy when he’s not popping up over my shoulder to tell me I’m doing shit wrong.”

“Yeah, he used to do the same to me.”

They fell into a brief silence. Nash ran a hand through his hair and rubbed at the back of his neck

“So that’s…I didn’t know about that whole, situation, with you two.”

“You do now.”

“You’re telling me! Kind of got thrown headfirst into that one. Or, lips first I guess.”

Cisco’s expression suggested that he didn’t have too much sympathy for Nash’s plight.

“Well, you might have had a heads up if you'd, oh I don’t know, told me literally anything about seeing him?”

Nash shared a glance with Harry, then gave Cisco a half-apologetic shrug.

“I could’ve, I guess. But I wasn’t sure how real my visions were. Didn’t really wanna spread the word around in case I was going crazy.”

“It would be hard to tell the difference.” Cisco mused, sarcastically.

“Hey watch it! You and your spectral boy-toy are the ones using my body like an after-life Upswipz account.”

“That,” Cisco pointed at Nash, ready for an argument, but paused as considered it, “was an accident, actually.”

Nash looked for confirmation from Harry who shrugged in apology.

“Yeah alright I know.” He sighed. “I guess I just can’t keep you two crazy kids apart.”

“You will if you keep talking about us like that.” Cisco remarked.

“Or at all.” Harry added.

Nash laughed and rolled his eyes at Harry, causing Cisco to frown. 

“What was that?” He asked.

“Harry just told me to keep my mouth shut.”

Cisco whipped around, peering in the same direction as Nash, brow furrowing as if he could make Harry appear through willpower alone. Harry had half a hope he could. Cisco shook his head as he turned back to Nash.

“I’m gonna have to get used to that now, I guess.”

“Yeah well, I’m no professional,” Nash remarked, straightening his collar and fixing his jacket cuffs, “but if you guys need me to translate for date night-”

“NO.” Harry and Cisco cried, in unison. 

A mischievous grin spread across Nash’s face.

“Are you sure?” He looked at his bracer like a watch. “I can make time.”

“No, we’re fine thanks. We’ll figure something out.”

“Certain? I can provide a very romantic atmosphere.” Nash put his hands on his hips. “Harry thinks it's a good idea.”

“No I don’t!” Harry sputtered.

“He does not.” Cisco assured.

Nash looked at Harry and nodded, as if listening intently to something Harry was telling him.

“I don’t know what to tell you Cisco, he’s saying it's a great idea and that I’m very gracious for offering.”

Cisco made his way back to the workshop’s entrance, picking up his heavy backpack and hoisting it over his shoulder.

“Then despite Harry’s very real and not made up support of this idea, I think I’m gonna pass for both of us. I think we can think of something that doesn’t involve you sticking your nose into our business.”

“Ah but you like this nose.” Nash retorted slyly, shaking his finger at Cisco then gesturing at his own face. “I don’t know what you’re going to do now that I know you’re a sucker for these baby blues.”

Cisco rolled his eyes in fond exasperation and Harry made to smack the back of Nash’s head, only to have his fingers pass incorporeally through his unruly hair.

“Yeah alright, try to seduce me, see how far that gets you.”

“Oh trust me I could.” Nash opened his mouth to continue, but was halted by Harry stepping into his line of sight, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. Nash held up his gloved hands in defeat, still smiling cheekily. “That is, if your boyfriend didn’t live rent-free in my head and wasn’t glaring daggers at me right now.”

Cisco dropped his head to his chest, hiding a soft grin. He put a tongue in his cheek to try to maintain his composure as he looked up.

“I’ll have to take your word for it. See you later, Nash.”

Cisco took a step out of the door, Harry following close behind.

“Seriously though.”

Both Harry and Cisco turned to see Nash, arms crossed, grin vanished.

“If you need my help, I’m here.”

Harry gave him a nod which Nash returned. Cisco hoisted the backpack higher onto his shoulder.

“Thanks.” This time Cisco’s reply was sincere. “We’ll let you know, Oda Mae.”

“Wh-”

Before Nash could even articulate his confusion, Cisco had rounded the corner, out of sight. Harry shrugged at Nash, pretending not to understand the reference, then followed Cisco, casually keeping pace beside him. He stuffed his hands into his ghostly pockets as they walked, frowning when Cisco turned away from the Labs’ exit and instead headed further into the building. Harry hoped the spiritual tether leashing him to Nash was long enough to follow wherever it was that Cisco was going.

One flight of stairs later, Harry understood. They soon found themselves outside the basement room Harry had called home on Earth-1. Cisco took a breath and pushed on the door, which swung open easily. The room didn’t look much different than it had when Harry had used it, only more crowded. Boxes and crates lined the walls; it had clearly been used as a storage space in this reality, since Harry had never technically existed. That made it all the more surprising to spot a low camp bed positioned against the far wall.

They picked their way through the boxes to an empty space where Cisco dropped his bag and began to rummage through it. Harry perched himself on a pile of crates and wondered when Cisco had dragged the bed in here, and how often he’d used it. Cisco shrugged off his buttoned overshirt, and pulled a t-shirt over his head. Harry watched Cisco’s simple process of undressing and putting on his pyjamas with as much fascination as if Cisco was performing a magic act.

Once dressed, Cisco crawled into the low bed, throwing a couple of rumpled blankets over the canvas. He rolled onto his side, leaving just enough room on the other half of the narrow bed for another person to occupy. Slowly, Harry stood and walked over to him, pausing to look down at Cisco, curled on his side, with his dark hair spread behind him like a rolling wave. Harry lay down, conscious not to trap Cisco’s hair under his shoulder, despite knowing it didn’t actually matter.

The room was dark, and Cisco’s soft breathing was the only sound that dared disturb the evening’s silence.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

Cisco whispered it, just loud enough for him to hear. Harry rolled onto his side and reached out a hand, meaning to rest it on Cisco’s waist. His fingers passed through Cisco’s creased t-shirt and curled into a disappointed fist. Instead, Harry leant forward, pressing his lips lightly to Cisco’s shoulder, knowing he couldn't feel it, but imagining that he would, regardless.

“Goodnight, Ramon.”

Harry lay back, listening to the steady rise and fall of Cisco’s chest, and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, Harry remembered what it was, to be alive.


End file.
